


promise

by mechanicalUniverses



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Whump, little one!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23634454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicalUniverses/pseuds/mechanicalUniverses
Summary: The light is there, shimmering away not five mechanometers from his dirt-stiffened digits. Pink, like the energon sticks glowing in sweet bundles in the market stalls lining the streets of Cybertron. His favorite, he thinks distantly. He drags his shattered body over rocks and rubble, forward, he must go forward, but the light never comes closer, never becomes brighter, and the earth begins to close in, swallowing the light and—
Relationships: Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	promise

**Author's Note:**

> and here we are, my first ever transformers fic! i devoured mtmte and ll at a friend’s recommendation, loved it, and was immediately possessed by a need to write a little more about these two. i love them a lot! (❁´︶`❁) enjoy!

_The light is there, shimmering away not five mechanometers from his dirt-stiffened digits. Pink, like the energon sticks glowing in sweet bundles in the market stalls lining the streets of Cybertron._ His favorite, _he thinks distantly. He drags his shattered body over rocks and rubble, forward, he must go forward, but the light never comes closer, never becomes brighter, and the earth begins to close in, swallowing the light and—_

Tailgate’s optics blink online. He does not move, not even to unclench the hard fists his servos have formed. Silvery darts of light glisten like crystal dust through the huge window, just missing Tailgate’s berth and instead striking the expansive backside of Cyclonus. He wonders how many of those stars are the same ones he knew six million years ago. Maybe a few had found their time since then, but there still has to be at least some that are still blazing away. He wonders, then, which ones they are.

The gentle rumble of the ship smoothes the rough edges of his fading nightmare. When those are gone, leaving Tailgate with nothing but a chilly, faint sense of panic, it chases the final dregs away too. When those too finally fade, Tailgate is completely online. He hates this feeling, this, this _tension_ this nightmare always brings him. It’s a gross combination of the exhaustion and crankiness of being dragged out of an otherwise perfectly pleasant recharge, plus the hot needles of terror and desperation still buried deep in his spark. It makes his energon froth and bubble frantically within his tubes and channels, but it never spills over. He isn’t really sure if that’s a good thing or not.

He sits up, dimming his visor as he draws his knees up towards his spark chamber. Stupid crummy recharge cycle. Stupid nightmare. He should have known something was going to be off when Cyclonus actually said, “Good night,” back to him last night instead of grumbling noncommittally. At the thought of him, Tailgate’s gaze slides from the wall across from him to Cyclonus.

Even offline, Cyclonus strikes an impressive figure. The starlight casts deep shadows into the grooves of his armor, giving him the impression of being much larger and sharper than he is. A single horn glitters like a blade piercing the dark as Cyclonus shifts slightly. For a brief second, Tailgate wonders what would happen if he crawled right up to Cyclonus and curled up in front of his chest plate. The thought is banished immediately. It’s ridiculous, so ridiculous Tailgate can’t even laugh at himself for ever allowing it to cross his mind.

He vents a huff, sort of wishing he had a mouth instead of an intake port so he could scowl properly. It would feel appropriate given this is the seventh time this decacycle he’s had this nightmare, though it is the first time he’s had it two nights in a row. It’s always the same thing; he’s back in the crumbling tunnels beneath the Mitteous Plateau, eternally crawling towards his energon rations to initiate a rescue attempt. He never makes it before the tunnel collapses, burying his spark once and for all.

He’s tried to convince himself that that’s not what happened. He survived—proof of that is engraved into his chest piece. Proof of that is recharging next to him. Proof of that is that he’s contemplating all of this proof _here,_ on the _Lost Light._ But he would appear he finally has to concede this particular plan of attack is simply not working. The nightmare keeps coming back, and it leaves him worse off with every occurance. Tailgate draws his knees in a little tighter. The issue, he decides, isn’t what had literally happened to him. What is it then? A mental thing? An emotional thing? He supposes that makes a bit of sense. Living—surviving, really—for six million years in the abject terror of being forgotten without ever being known would have its impact. 

Deep in thought, Tailgate does not notice Cyclonus’ vent cycle hitching and speeding up until red optics begin to glow in the corner of his vision.

“Tailgate.”

Tailgate startles, then slouches miserably over himself with another long exvent. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

Cyclonus sits up, unswayed. “Something is bothering you.”

_Really?_ Tailgate thinks scathingly, and then is immediately taken aback at his own cynicism. “Mm. Yeah, it’s not a big deal. I’ll—I’ll get over it.” 

With that, he twists to lay facing away from Cyclonus and offlines his optics completely. Hopefully, Cyclonus will follow their old routine and ignore him so they can both return to recharge. Then Tailgate can at least take comfort in knowing he hasn’t successfully bothered anyone else with—

“Talk to me.”

Or not.

“Seriously,” Tailgate says to the wall, “it’s nothing.” 

“It’s never nothing with you.” 

Tailgate pauses. He genuinely cannot tell if that was supposed to be insulting or not, so he turns back around to ask. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You care too much. About everything. Very little does not matter to you.” Cyclonus lifts his legs and swings them around towards Tailgate to set his pedes down on the floor in a deliberate _one, two_. “I won’t ask you again. What’s bothering you enough to be able to rouse me from recharge?”

“You technically never asked the first time,” Tailgate reminds him and, alright, now he’s just being catty. Cyclonus is very generously offering his help, and Tailgate is being cranky. “Ugh. Sorry.” Cyclonus waves the apology aside with a smooth movement of his servo. Tailgate trails it hazily before he exvents another sigh. “It’s just—just this nightmare I keep having,” he admits. “About when I was stuck underground.”

Cyclonus leans forward. “What about it?”

Even as he runs what he’s going to say through his processor, he can’t help but feel it’s redundant. This is _Cyclonus_ he’s talking to. He’s seen everything under the stars—so many horrific, spark-shattering events Tailgate couldn’t even imagine, let alone dream about. A nightmare about something that didn’t even happen is no doubt going to sound foolish no matter how dramatically he spins it.

“I dunno…” he begins lamely. “It’s always the same thing. I’m back in the tunnel I fell into under the Plateau—legs gone, T-cog shot, that whole thing—and I’m trying to get to my energy rations so I can detonate them and call for help. But no matter how long I crawl towards them, I can never reach them before the tunnel collapses, and I—” Tailgate shudders hard enough to rattle his armor. “It’s dumb.”

Cyclonus’ engines hum. “It isn’t ‘dumb.’”

“I mean, it kind of is. The whole thing was—” A flare of humiliation burns through his EM field before he can smother it. “Do you want to know why I even decided to try to take the Plateau as a shortcut? I forgot to set my chronometer the night before my unit left.” He barks a humorless laugh. “And they told me, ‘Tailgate, we’ll leave without you if you’re late,’ and I said, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ and then I did. What part of that isn’t dumb? Who gets stuck in a hole for six million years because they forget to set the alarm? I should have just stayed in recharge that day.”

“Tailgate,” Cyclonus says seriously, but he does not sound angry. Or rather, sound annoyed that Tailgate is wasting his time. “You were still very new to Cybertron as a whole when that happened. You never could have known what dangers—”

“Except I _should_ have,” Tailgate exclaims, “because I heard only about a _billion_ different stories about how dangerous the Plateau is.”

“I will not make excuses for you,” Cyclonus says levelly. “It was an admittedly rash decision. There likely were indeed many more options that you overlooked in your haste.” Tailgate bristles, but Cyclonus cuts him off with a flare of his optics. “Listen to me. I stand by the fact that you could not have known better. Most of Cybertronian life must be experienced; it cannot simply be told to you second-hand and be expected of you to understand it completely. Desperation and your… youth made for a dangerous combination, neither of which is your fault. You must not berate an inexperienced version of yourself which only exists in your past.”

He’s right, in his own cold-cut, clinical way. It doesn’t really make Tailgate feel any better, though. “Thanks,” he says anyway, because at least it’s something.

But Cyclonus seems to reach the same conclusion, as he turns away and mutters, “Hm,” as a response.

They fall silent for a few nano-kliks. Tailgate fidgets. Cyclonus is still with thought.

“May I ask you another question?”

“Shoot.”

“Is that what’s truly what’s keeping you up? Wondering what your life could have been had you simply set your chronometer?”

Tailgate curls in tighter around himself. “No.”

Cyclonus does not press. He watches instead, and watches, and keeps watching, as though he can undo the few layers of Tailgate’s being with his gaze alone. If he does it long enough, he might. Tailgate wishes he would say what he wants to say instead of doing whatever this was. Waiting. Expecting. 

“I should not have intruded—”

“It’s just that I was so—”

They both stop, then say, “No, go ahead,” at the same time. Cyclonus huffs. “What were you saying?”

Tailgate hesitates. Then, in a small voice, he asks, “Is it…” He whorls his intake shut. “Is it bad of me to wish I hadn’t been alone down there?”

He almost thinks Cyclonus didn’t hear him for the length of time he is silent. “I do not believe so,” he finally says just as Tailgate is about to dismiss it. “You did not wish for them to share your fate. You wanted company. That is a crucial difference and a reasonable request, in my opinion.”

“Primus, no, I don’t want anyone going through the same thing I did.” The quiet. The loneliness. Tailgate stills. Millions of years worth of memories trickle back in from behind the door he had shut on them in the efforts of pushing the nightmare out of his mind. Memories of hopelessly staring at the energon cubes, of beating back voice after voice telling him to give up, of hating himself. The brightening of his visor is nearly painful in its intensity.

“Tailgate?” Cyclonus asks, alarmed. “Have I said something wrong?”

“There was—there was _nothing_ there,” Tailgate starts abruptly. “Not even an antroid. All I had were my readouts calling me an idiot over and over again. Sometimes I thought I could hear some jets flying overhead, but none of them ever detected my signal. Or—or they ignored me. I’ll never know. But I couldn’t—I-I couldn’t help thinking about if I _did_ die down there.” A strangled laugh escapes from his vocalizer. “No more Tailgate. There wouldn’t have even been a ‘more’, there was so little of me to begin with.”

The words are practically falling from him now, senseless and wild like a frenzy of storms clashing together, his vocalizer spasming with hiccups of static. “But the worst part, the worst part was that I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of a _nobody_ I was. I never told anyone I was leaving, and no one ever came looking for me. If I died, I wouldn’t even be the smallest bit of co— _hic_ —ding to someone’s memory, I would never get to make my mark on anyone or—or anything, ‘nd it wouldn’t have been a-a-a very big mark, but at least it would have been something! Just a little one,” he gasps around a sob, “a little was all I ever asked for—”

His voice stutters as he abruptly finds Cyclonus in the space on the floor he’d been staring at, kneeling before him with his arms held open wide and though his expression remains uncertain, his EM field radiates warmth and comfort and safety. Tailgate whimpers and tumbles ungracefully from his berth into Cyclonus’ waiting arms. They immediately close around him, pulling Tailgate close to the soothing pulse of Cyclonus’ spark. It thrums steadily beneath his mess of loud hiccups and choppy gasps and strangled sobs—he never had been a pretty crier. He pushes his faceplate in, crushing himself against Cyclonus’ body as though he could shield him from the whole universe.

“I am here, little one,” Cyclonus murmurs against his helm. “Do you hear my spark? I am here.”

Tailgate’s own spark swells until his chamber aches. He cannot respond, so he nods frantically instead. They stay on the floor like that for breems, Tailgate weeping into Cyclonus’ chest and Cyclonus holding him until slowly, oh so painfully slowly, the sobs begin to dissipate. They retract at first into violent shudders that shake Tailgate’s whole body, then into shivers, and finally into that exhausted stillness that comes only after one has released every emotion they have to run wild through the cosmos. Cyclonus hums some song Tailgate does not recognize the whole time, one servo gently stroking the back of Tailgate’s helm. _It’s warm_ , he thinks. Cyclonus looks like the type of mech whose vents only produce frost and chill, but up close, up close he is so, so warm.

Time passes as an unsteady stream, jerking between syrupy slow to desperately quick in the same moments. Cyclonus stops singing as Tailgate quiets. He can’t figure out how to ask him to keep going, so instead Tailgate tries to match his vent cycles to Cyclonus’ deep, slow ones and eventually dares a glance upwards. Cyclonus’ optics are dim, but focused on him. When he sees Tailgate peeking, he smiles. Something ferociously powerful has settled between their two EM fields, linking and holding them together. Tailgate can’t quite name what it is, but it feels something like a promise.

“I’m going to stand up,” Cyclonus finally says after another breem slips by.

“Okay,” Tailgate rasps, voice fuzzed with static.

The world lurches slightly as Cyclonus stands, still cupping the back of Tailgate’s helm as though he is something precious. Something worth protecting. Tailgate clings ever-tighter to Cyclonus even as he begins to gingerly settle them both down into his berth. He whines pitifully when Cyclonus moves him away, “Don’t go, please don’t go,” but it’s brief, and it’s only to rearrange him more comfortably over his chassis. Cyclonus shushes him gently, bowing his helm over Tailgate’s form. 

“I will not leave you,” Cyclonus rumbles. Tailgate more feels the words through his body than actually hears them. It’s shocking how much comfort that brings him. Already, his optics are dimming and the tension in his joints is slipping away beneath Cyclonus’ touch with every pass of his servo. “You can rest here. I will stay with you through the night, and through the day—as long as you need me, I will be at your side.” 

Tailgate’s spark warms with a brilliant burst and with it, the lasting chills of the nightmare are finally dispelled. He takes his first steady vent in the past two groons and fixes his gaze upon Cyclonus’ face. “I—Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you, Cyclonus, thank you, _thank you_.” 

Cyclonus smiles. It’s soft, private, something reserved only for his most vulnerable moments. He allowed one of those moments to happen for his sake, Tailgate realizes. Impossibly, his spark swells even bigger.

“Of course,” Cyclonus says, as easily as anything. 

“Sorry for getting… slag all over you.”

“Do not concern yourself over it.” They share a couple of quiet vent cycles. “You should rest, little one.”

Rest. That sounded good. “I like it when you call me that,” Tailgate murmurs as he goes through his list of systems to shut down. “It’s sweet.” An embarrassed glow enters their shared EM fields and Tailgate chuckles sleepily. “What? It is.”

Cyclonus grumbles something in dissent, but Tailgate can’t hear it. His audial systems are already offline—whether or not this was to avoid Cyclonus’ argument is entirely subjective. Soon after, he slips into recharge right there in Cyclonus’ arms. 

* * *

_He’s back in the tunnel._

_He curls his servos into fists, crushing a few unfortunate stones in his grip. He had hoped—he had hoped, that with Cyclonus’ help, his promises, he could be free of this fragging tunnel for just one night. But Cyclonus is not here. This is his fight, and his alone._

_He is alone._

_As despair crushes his spark, a familiar warmth curls itself around the back of his chassis. He stills. The warmth does not speak, and does not move either, but somehow he can still tell what it is saying._

_I will stay at your side._

_Night and day, for as long as you need me._

_You will never know loneliness again._

_Cyclonus never said that. But that feeling, that powerful, all-consuming feeling, that_ promise _—this was it, wasn’t it?_

_He looks up. The energon cubes glow before him. They are much closer than they ever have been before._

_Tailgate reaches forward and above him, the sky blooms._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! i hope you have a wonderful day. ٩( *´﹀`* )۶♬*


End file.
